Exhibition hall. Photos: Courtesy of BCA.

MUJI is a rapidly growing Japanese version of such domestic outlet stores as Habitat or, dare we say it, IKEA: clean, minimalist and modern in design.

Whether such comparisons will please Kenya Hara, the 53-year-old Japanese art director of MUJI, however, is unlikely.

Hara, who believes MUJI represents a uniquely Japanese take on design, was in town for a major solo exhibition, Designing Design, now at the Beijing Center for the Arts (BCA) until July 15. Even though MUJI has grown into a worldwide brand in its 28 years, Hara attributes this giant success to "localized aesthetics", namely, the Japanese tradition of simplicity, which has evolved into a distinguished minimalist aesthetics in the hands of Hara.

A graduate of Musashino Art University, Tokyo, Hara entered the Nippon Design Center (NDC), the largest design corporation in Japan, in 1983, setting up the Hara Design Institute within NDC nine years later. Since 2001, Hara has been with MUJI.

Value of local cultures

Zhu E, the curator (and a graphic designer himself), said that the preparation time for the exhibition was three years "with the objective to redefine the role of graphic design in the 21st century by exploring and dissecting Kenya Hara."

Designing Design is derived from Hara's idea of reviving graphic design. The exhibition showcases both Hara's and his colleagues' designs and their attitudes when confronted with technological, artistic and cultural changes in the world.

In the opening words of his speech Thursday evening at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Hara emphasized that Asians now guide trends in the world.

"Economic improvement has resulted in globalization, yet art, by contrast, moves toward localization, which means originality."

"Although Japan is younger from a historical point of view, it managed to avoid the complexity of culture shock," said Weng Ling, art director of BCA.

"Instead of absorbing simple elements, Japan simplified and selected the finest parts of its traditional culture and the most workable parts of modernity, and sought a breakdown. It presented a carefully refined and universally accepted prototype to the entire world."

Acknowledging that the development of design in Japan has its own peculiarity, Zhu explained that one of the most prominent features is its effort to explore local culture.

"Since Japanese people hold culture in high regard, they have, both in form and content, created unique characteristics with rich artistic influences in the realm of literature, art and design," he noted.

'Nothing is designed'

The exhibition has divided the 2,000-square meter gallery space into three sections. The first part, Exhibitions of the Exhibition, collates Hara's past seven exhibitions, which endeavor to probe the "essence of things," feature colleagues such as Kengo Kuma, Naoto Fukasawa and Shigeru Ban.

Art Directing MUJI meanwhile explains Hara's practice of integrating his distinctive Japanese aesthetics into corporate development and gives clear clues to how Hara has applied and adapted his ideas into corporate growth.

Lastly, Multiphase of Design serves as a retrospective of Hara's creative adventures, with a full display of package designs, logos, books and poster designs, some of which are from projects involved with China.

Hara took the function of containers as an analogy of Japanese culture. "It fully realizes the concept of emptiness so as to conserve or to accept something."

Based on this notion, Hara provided other symbolical instances.

"If there's a roundabout at the center of an intersection, no traffic light is needed. Moreover, the red circle on the Japanese national flag is meaningless but I think it well represents emptiness. The emptier a 'container' is, the more imaginative power we can have," Hara explained.

Modernism is minimalist

To Hara, complicated design implicitly embodies political authority and intervention. "The surface of ancient bronze works is intricate and so is the magnificent construction of the Taj Mahal in India… the concept or the design of simplicity only took place in modern society, when individualism sprouted, 150 years ago."

It was a time when Japan was greatly influenced by various Western cultures due to its geographical advantage, said Hara. "Despite these intercultural interactions, the Japanese have always insisted on the principle or philosophy of simplicity and emptiness."

The aesthetics of MUJI products have a deep correlation with traditional Japanese culture. However, Hara clarified that the notion behind his designs is emptiness rather than simplicity.

"Some customers criticize that MUJI is different from design, yet they overlook the fact that it was minimalist aesthetics that lead MUJI to develop its series of merchandise, from 40 to over 7,000 types.

"Customers have different interpretations of MUJI products. Some say they've realized eco-friendly, affordable goods especially fit urban life, while others think they are totally 'away' from design," Hara said. "No matter what kind of comments they are, MUJI accept all of them, an ultimate actualization of so-called 'emptiness'."

Zhu praised Hara as a paragon of emerging Japanese designers.

"The new design concept in Japan initiated and led by Hara has penetrated into a great many sub-branches, such as books, packaging, Web, interaction, industrial and interior design. The deeper understanding of a model designer and the cultural aspects of his time should not only be read from writings," he concluded, "but more from real products, the ideal 'speakers' of Japan's culture of design."